Breakast and More Breakfast!

I started my day off with an old-fashioned treat... muesli! If you aren't familiar with muesli, its very much like oatmeal--- only in addition to oats, ingredients such as seeds, nuts, dried fruits, and other grains are added. I love it because it's a break from the monotony of oatmeal, and the additional ingredients make for an interesting texture. You can eat muesli either hot or cold, much like oatmeal.

Almond, dried plum, and vanilla protein baked muesli

Looks absolutely yummy, right? Here's how I concocted this:

Recipe:
Almond, dried plum, and vanilla protein baked muesli (serves 1)

1/2 cup muesli (or oats if you prefer)
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk (or whatever type of milk you prefer... you can use water as well)
1 scoop vanilla whey protein powder (I used About Time/SDC Nutrition protein powder in Birthday Cake flavor)
2 tablespoons chopped unsweetened dried plums
1 tablespoon slivered almonds
Optional: cinnamon, stevia, nutmeg, ground clove, ground ginger

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a small pot, bring unsweetened almond milk to a boil. Add muesli to almond milk, then simmer for 3-5 minutes, or until most of the liquid has been absorbed. Remove from heat, and fold in protein powder, dried plums, and any additional ingredients (I used a liberal amount of cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and ginger). Pour muesli mixture into an oven-safe dish. Top with slivered almonds. I also sprinkled some more cinnamon and a bit of stevia on the top. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until top begins to brown. Eat and enjoy!

My husband ate this with me this morning. He's never had muesli before, but its safe to say he's a convert! He asked me to save some for him so he could eat it when he got home from work in the morning! I'd call that a culinary clean eats success in my book.

Me pre-workout... you can tell its pre-workout because my hair does NOT look like that post-workout!

I had an awesome workout today. I was overflowing with energy for some reason, so I know I put 110% into my workouts. I went for a 6 mile tempo run, plus I lifted weights... it was shoulder day today! Love it! Afterward, I still had a good amount of energy, so I thought I'd throw in a "fun" workout to blow off some steam. I ended up joining my mother in law (her New Year's resolution is to lose weight) in some Zumba. I'm a fan of Zumba just because its so much fun that it doesn't even seem like a workout to me! Just seems like a dance party... only I can look as stupid as I want to rocking out to the tunes because I'm in the comfort of my own home! With the curtains closed. And the blinds shut. Essential parts of this, trust me.

Dinner tonight: brinner! I'm all about breakfast foods, plus you all know about my love of egg whites, so brinner is on the menu quite often in my house! Tonight's brinner? Potato, cherry tomato, mushroom, red pepper, spinach, and egg white frittatas. I may or may not have vigorously poured hot sauce all over my entire frittata... I can neither confirm nor deny! I don't eat potatoes very often, just because my body is extremely carb-sensitive, but I indulged in some carby potato goodness in my frittata tonight for a change!

Potato, cherry tomato, mushroom, red pepper, and spinach egg white frittata

With it, I also sipped on a glass of clean lemonade. Clean, refreshing, delicious, and thirst-quenching! And super simple to make!

How simple? Find out!

Clean lemonade... delicious!

Recipe:
Quick and Clean Lemonade (serves 2)

1 lemon
Sparkling water
Liquid stevia drops to taste

Slice lemons, and place lemon slices evenly in two glasses. Pour sparkling water over lemon slices. Finally, add liquid stevia to lemonade until you reach your desired sweetness. Yum!

Of course, you can use other citrus fruits if you'd like--- limes, oranges, grapefruit. One of my favorite things to do is to add a bit of fresh mint into my clean lemonade for a refreshing lemon-mint beverage. Its such a simple recipe that's great for whenever you need a break from "just water!"

In other news, tomorrow starts a whole new workout schedule for me. It will be a hybrid of marathon run training (focusing on lowering my time), heavy weight lifting, and P90X3 workouts. I'm excited--- it'll give my workout schedule more structure, and it'll prevent overuse of the same muscle groups on consecutive days. Stay posted for definitive details!

As always, be happy and be healthy guys!